Ceramics/Pottery
Like any chemist, I often design, tweak, and mix my own glazes from raw materials. There are no bulk glaze orders or little jars of premixed, pastel liquids sitting on my shelves. Everything is *mmm, haphazardly* measured with a scale, mixed, and sieved into 5-gallon buckets for dipping.
While my preferences lie with atmospheric methods, I have begun adopting these technologies to cone 6 oxidation. You'll see a large amount of my better work with telltale wood ash blasts on them, but you'll also see some color/glazes as well. When I don't have access to wood/soda kilns, I'm attempting fancy, chemistry things with colored glazes and trying to make other potters look twice. If you have ideas, want something no one else can figure out how to make, or want to challenge me, send me a message.
If you'd like to order a rare earth metal-glazed tumbler/coffee mug that changes colors, send me a note.
Artist Statement
Holding a utilitarian object that another took the time to fully consider, form, plan, and conceive invites a certain intimacy between user and creator. The fusion of aesthetics and utility adds to this depth, such that a connection is sought in a functional piece of ceramics. As a chemistry educator, I either formulate or choose each glaze with both function and aesthetic in mind, just as the clay body is engineered to be more durable than mass-produced wares. My work is made to be held, touched, considered, loved, and used on a daily basis; it is meant to be thrown in the sink and to break mass-produced works. In a medium often dominated by sculpture and the non-functional, I seek to provide long-lasting and more meaningful utilitarian objects in the pursuit of connection and immortality.
While my preferences lie with atmospheric methods, I have begun adopting these technologies to cone 6 oxidation. You'll see a large amount of my better work with telltale wood ash blasts on them, but you'll also see some color/glazes as well. When I don't have access to wood/soda kilns, I'm attempting fancy, chemistry things with colored glazes and trying to make other potters look twice. If you have ideas, want something no one else can figure out how to make, or want to challenge me, send me a message.
If you'd like to order a rare earth metal-glazed tumbler/coffee mug that changes colors, send me a note.
Artist Statement
Holding a utilitarian object that another took the time to fully consider, form, plan, and conceive invites a certain intimacy between user and creator. The fusion of aesthetics and utility adds to this depth, such that a connection is sought in a functional piece of ceramics. As a chemistry educator, I either formulate or choose each glaze with both function and aesthetic in mind, just as the clay body is engineered to be more durable than mass-produced wares. My work is made to be held, touched, considered, loved, and used on a daily basis; it is meant to be thrown in the sink and to break mass-produced works. In a medium often dominated by sculpture and the non-functional, I seek to provide long-lasting and more meaningful utilitarian objects in the pursuit of connection and immortality.
|
|
Location
|
Currently working and teaching at:
Visual Arts Center of Richmond (Intermediate/Advanced Japanese Ceramics and Glazes) This class will focus on traditional Japanese forms including yunomi and chawan tea vessels, sake sets, serving trays/dishes, jars, vases, ikebana, and single flower vases. We will also touch on Japanese glazes, such as shino, ash, tenmoku, celadon, chun, and nuka white from which many of today’s current glazes originate. Each student will be encouraged to explore at least one Japanese form and at least one glaze. We will focus on wall thickness, balance, contour, undershadow, undercut trimming, lip bevel, and other ceramic subtleties that the greatest potters in the world have borrowed from Asian aesthetics. |
Contact Me for Custom Orders or Requests
Feel free to contact me for custom orders and requests. While I try to stay away from the generic "cup with someone's name/phrase/business symbol on it," I heartily enjoy filling tableware or party-sized serving requests that have a good flare or subtle Japanese style to them.